Glimmer is a Great New Alarm Clock, Minus the Alarm Part

Alarms are probably one of the more under-appreciated functions of our modern devices, given that they let most of us wake up and get to work on time. We have come to love the now Google-owned Timely, which is packed with many great features along with a $0 price tag. Its latest competitor is Glimmer, an alarm clock that seeks to wake you up completely silently.

The way Glimmer tries to pull you from slumber is by turning your device’s screen on and slowly brightening it over the course of 30 minutes. If you sleep with a spouse or sibling and don’t want to annoy them when you get up, you can simply angle your device’s screen away from them and let Glimmer do its thing in the morning.

For those of you skeptical about whether your phone or tablet’s screen could possibly end your hibernation, the app begins playing a bird’s sound toward the middle of the screen-on alarm. And if even that is not enough, it’ll bring out the big guns and hit you with a loud noise.

Rounding out the list of features is the ability to put your device in a “night mode” while you’re sleeping, which will cut down your brightness, turn off your sounds, and disconnect from the Internet. As daytime draws closer, night mode will intelligently turn off and let your phone synchronize your notifications to be viewed in the morning.

If you sleep in a dark cave like some of us DL staffers, this is quite literally the perfect alarm for you. And for free, there’s no reason for you not to check it out (other than if you’ll lose your job for not waking up).